Effect of different feeds on the growth, survival and reproductive performance of zebrafish,Danio rerio(Hamilton, 1822)

Abstract

Present experiment was conducted to determine the effect of different feeds with varying protein levels on the growth, survival and reproductive performance of zebrafish, Danio rerio. The control diet (T1) was wild-collected zooplankton from local fish ponds, while test diets with 350 g kg À1 protein (T2), 400 g kg À1 protein (T3) and 450 g kg À1 protein (T4) were formulated and fed to fish for a period of 210 days. The significantly (P < 0.05) highest mean weight gain and specific growth rate were observed in T1, which were similar with T3 and T4. The significantly (P < 0.05) highest number of egg production per female and relative fecundity were found in T1, followed by T4 and T3 while T2 produced lowest number of eggs. No significant (P > 0.05) differences were observed in brood survival rate, fertilization and hatching rate among the dietary treatments. The highest (P < 0.05) fry survival rate was recorded in T1, followed by T3 and T4. Thus, it is suggested that control diet i.e. mixed zooplankton exhibited better growth, reproductive performance and fry survival rate. However, diet containing 400 g kg À1 crude protein also gave comparable results in terms of growth, survival and reproductive performance of zebrafish.

Effects of natural and commercial diets on growth, reproductive performances and embryogenesis of zebrafish Danio rerio

“…Gonzales (10) did not find any difference in fertilization rate in zebrafish but 80% fertilization rate in indoor zebrafish culture. Karga and Mandal (8) observed only 53.62% hatch rate when four diets were tested.…”

“…The following formulae were used in calculating weight gain, condition factor, specific growth rate (SGR), gender weight gain (g), length gain (cm), food conversion ratio (FCR) and survival rate (%) (8,10) . Five pairs of male and female from each aquarium was held in breeding aquaria (1 male : 1 female ratio) for natural spawning and fertilization.…”

“…Although pertinent literatures are available on zebrafish as model animal in research but a few documents are available in nutritional requirement specially protein requirement of zebrafish (1,(5)(6)(7) . Thus there is a need to study protein requirement of zebrafish for proper growth and reproduction (8) . Therefore, the study was conducted to determine the effect of 3 natural and 1 commercially available diet on growth, reproduction and embryogenesis of zebrafish.…”

Effects of feeding frequency on growth performances and RNA : DNA ratio of the gangetic mystus (Mystus cavasius Hamilton, 1822) in laboratory condition

“…After sampling, they were released carefully into the aquarium. To evaluate the growth of fishes and feed performances, average daily gain, specific growth rate, condition factor, feed conversion ratio and survival rate were assessed (14)(15) .…”

Optimizing the Use of Zebrafish Feeding Trials for the Safety Evaluation of Genetically Modified Crops

“…The most popular fish species that have been used for these purposes are Atlantic salmon [18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25] and rainbow trout [26,27]. Zebrafish have been used as a model for nutritional research and human metabolic diseases because of their considerable genetic identity and key metabolic similarities with humans [28,29,30], and the zebrafish has recently been proposed as a model for the safety evaluation of GM crops [31,32,33]. An important consideration in this respect is that the amount of crop material (non-GM and GM) required to perform the feeding trials is smaller compared to rodent trials, which may be relevant in cases where available materials are limited.…”